View Full Version : Sill replacement thread
Well I'm getting on with the job of replacing my sills and arches. i now have a pair of Escort Mk3/4 sills and a pair of Datsun Cherry arches.
I've decided to tackle the sills first as they are going to control where the arches go. I started this thread so that (1) anyone else wanting to do the same can hopefully let me make the mistakes first, and (2) in the hope that anyone who's alreday done it can help me along the way!
Anyway ... I'm planning to cut off the lip at the top of the new sill so that the top part is about 40mm wide. This should bring the new sill to up to about 5mm back from the vertical flange on the existing sill.
Then I will cut out the existing sill, leaving a lap of about 10mm to weld onto.
As a first pass I will cut the sill off leaving much more lap than this, and I will trial-and error the sill fitting, taking away lot less steel than I expect I will need to in the end, until it's clear how much should be taken off completely.
Sound reasonable? Any advice welcome!
And once I figure out how to, I'll post some pictures of where I've drawn on he car in marker pen to show where I'm going to cut it.
Paul Woods
11-03-2006, 06:09
excellent idea for a thread john,ive got a few pics of the process which i'll dig out later.What i tend to do with the escort sills is cut the underside face off right down the middle of the entire length of the sill,then the rest of it fits over the old sill perfectly (removing all but the top edge of old sill),then afterwards weld the bottom face back on underneath overlapping and onto the inner sill.
Then the big square rear section can be bent and folded into quite a good copy of the mk1 rear triangle section.
David Sleith
11-03-2006, 08:28
Sounds interesting.
I was lucky enough to bag a set of new toyota sills off ebay last year which are now on the car. Not a fun job getting the old sills off though and best use of the air hammer to date.
A picture's only worth 1000 words if the guy drawing it's any good ... hopefully this'll rate 50 or so!
This is looking end-on in the middle of the main sill section. On the left is the old sill, on the right is the new one. The red lines show the cuts I'm planning to make, the blue lines show where the parts will then be joined.
Does that look about right?
David, the old sill's practically crumbling off at the bottom, still if I have any trouble ... that's what angle grinders are for! :)
Paul if you have any pics that will be a great help.
Paul Woods
12-03-2006, 08:20
yep the diagram looks good,the top edge of the escort sill just lips over the corner of the old sill (the area under the door bottom edge when its shut) but you will find the underside area is too wide and ruins the profile....so i cut the bottom section right down the middle along the sills entire length and overlap those two sections to make the profile perfect...i'll throw some pics up and the odd diagram later on.
Right, some piccies:
My car looking a bit sorry for itself. Note crisps, torch and socket set on the verge of disappearing into the engine bay:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i351.jpg
With replacement sill clamped roughly in place:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i352.jpg
This the rusted-to-fcuk area - almost all of this came out just with my fingertips:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i367.jpg
The black line shows where I'm planning to cut away - it doesn't seem sensible to cut away and replace the (apparently) sound steel in the rest of the sill. Still, perhaps I should strip the paint off to be sure?
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i368.jpg
This is the underside of the crappy area, and someone (probably Paul!) said the inner sill is always still solid ... err ... there's a first time for everything!
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i366.jpg
I could just weld some flat steel to span the burgered area of the inner sill, once I've cut it away, then weld the outer sill cut-out piece over it.
But if it's got this bad, and it doesn't normally, then how fuked is the rest of the car, should I just be calling for a scrappy? The rest of the car seems OK as far as I can tell - even the A & C pillars aren't too bad, the rear arches have been done before but badly so I want to do them again, the tbar seals have had it and there's a bit of welding needed on the floor - but that's basically it (it is in dire need of a bigger engine of course!), nothing else out of the ordinary as far as I can tell. Now scared to investigate the other side :(
Edit: Why do my pics show as links and not visible in the thread?
Edit again: sorted, thanks Nik
David Sleith
19-03-2006, 01:46
Looks OK apart from the rot you are cutting away.
Scottish roads are a nightmare when it comes to salt.
These soft english lads aint got a look in
And I thought I was up late!
Looks OK apart from the rot you are cutting away.
Scottish roads are a nightmare when it comes to salt.
These soft english lads aint got a look in
I think you're right - the salt will of course attack the inner sills too through the holes made in the outer.
Exactly.
Lucky buggers!
Edit: Why do my pics show as links and not visible in the thread?
cos youre linking to a picGallery page URL rather than an image URL..
if you want to link to an image the URL is in the format..
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i351.jpg
http://www.woodsport.org/forum/images/recovered/2005/04/52.jpg
take the number at the end of your gallery page (in this case 351)..stick an 'i' before and add a .jpg after it..
:clap:
BUT PLEASE..DONT HOTLINK FROM OTHER FORUMS TO YOUR PICGALLERY AS BANDWIDTH USAGE COULD SKY-ROCKET..JUST USE URLS ON OTHER FORUMS..
Thanks Nik, sorted now.
Now I'm thinking, if the inner sill has to be replaced, I'd prefer not to have any cack welds in the middle of the sill where it's going to get the biggest bending stress. So I'm planning now to cut away the whole outer and inner sill, and replace the whole inner sill as well.
Are inner sills available? Any ideas of cost or source? I'd thought some off the shelf box-section steel might be the way to go about it.
David Sleith
21-03-2006, 17:54
If you mean the middle part of the sill which sits between outer sill and the main chassis rail it doesn't go the full length of the outer part. There is a reinforced part at the back and front. The rear part is about 12 inches and starts in the rear arch (looks for a little inch deep lip sticking out at the bottom) and stops about level with the rear of the door. The front part is much stronger and starts from the lip in the front arch and stops about a 1/3 into the length of the sill. It slopes from the front of the door at an angle till it hits the botom. The middle part on my car was only rotten about 2 inches all along the bottom.
I think a little patch repair to the bottom would be sufficient as there are loads of spot welds holding the two together at the front and would be a bitch to seperate.
To remove the whole sill with middle part is a nightmare as it is underneath the bottom parts of the A and B posts.
As I had two original Toyota sills I took the lot off as I didn't want to cut up my replacement to make life easy. Was one of the worst parts of the rebuild to date.
Whereabouts are you John? Could pop along at some point and bend your ear about all things Mk1.5 if you are not too far away.
Thanks David. That 'middle part' sounds like the bit I've called the inner sill.
Got a decent set of tinsnips today, planning to spend the evening gradually trimming away rot until I've got decent steel. Then I can decide what to do next once I see the full picture. The middle part seems much better on the other side, tho' the outer sill is worse.
I'm in East Lothian, unfortunately not just round the corner. I work in Edinburgh, get to Glasgow from time to time. I'm sure we could arrange something sometime though.
Seeing your job and location - you don't work for SP Power Systems in Bellshill do you?
David Sleith
21-03-2006, 19:57
Thats not too far mate.
I do work for SP Power Systems but its in Hamilton at the Network Management Centre. I work as a Control Engineer. You deal much with the Bellshill pencil pushers?
If your needing anything such as an engine crane or a second pair of hands for that difficult job then just shout.
I've cut away the rot, and trimmed (read: butchered) the replacement sill to cover it. I need to decide exactly what to do with the inner sill that's now revealed in all it's mankiness, but I reckon I can fabricate a piece of steel to cover the gap.
The inner sill in mine runs the whole length of the sill David, not sure if we're talking about the same part after all. Unless yours is a sunroof model and this is some of the extra reinforcement we hear about in Tbars (which mine is).
I've also got more pictures ... but I forgot to bring my camera today so I can't upload them.
David, yes I have some dealings with your people in Bellshill. In fact if you are in Network Management I'm probably about to make extra work for you (sorry!). I'll email you on this!
Edit: PM'd you not email.
David Sleith
23-03-2006, 23:44
Got your mail and replied mate
Post some pics up so we can have a look at your handiness
Here's the sill with the outer cut back to clean steel, the inner part is visible and a bit horrible too.
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i388.jpg
I decided, to start with, I'd only cut out the rusty parts and take it from there. I don't think there's any real need to do the whole sill as most of it's pretty sound.
Here's the inner bit looking nasty
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i390.jpg
Now this picture above is a bit worrying. Is the underside suppsed to have that apparent dent right along it? If this was the result of a crash or something I'd expect that the door wouldn't close (which it does), or the floor would seem bent from above (which it doesn't). Still looks wrong though.
The sill a little bit shrunken (hint: if you don't need the top part, buy a "skin sill". A pound or two more for some reason, but a lot less trimming)
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i391.jpg
The end showing where it looks as though the bottom flange doesn't meet. Should be bendable without too much trouble.
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i392.jpg
Edit: Still not showing the pics what's going on? Can anyone help here, I can't see what's wrong.
Edit again: Worked by copy-typing the exact same text - WTF??
David Sleith
24-03-2006, 16:37
Nasty Nasty
Different inside to mine and I have a T bar also. Is your car a Mk1a by any chance. Maybe they are different.
Cut as much rot away as you can. Botch up a repair on the inside as no one will see that bit. Rust treat everything else.
Maybe the more experienced guys can advise if you can just cut away the inner part where its rusty and do away with it or if it will compromise strength.
Mine's a Mk1b as well. Odd.
I've checked the steel thicknesses. The inner sill steel is 0.95mm thick. The chopped off door skin I'm using as a source of scrap is 0.84mm. Pretty small difference so I'm going to use the door skin to make up a repair piece for the inner sill.
I had myself down as a crap welder, so I set up some experimental pieces to try out adhesives. I glued pieces of scrap steel together with two different types of adhesive, then figured I'd have another go a welding to get a comparison.
Still couldn't get a half-good weld.
Then I looked closely at what was going on. The wire was hardly moving, even with the wire speed right up. Turned out I had put practically no pressure on the wire feed wheel. About 10 turns of the screw later - well I won't call the weld "beautiful" but it'd sure work!
So that now I'm thinking, why waste time even testing the glued pieces, just get on and weld it! But then again there may be times I need the adhesive, so half an hour of controlled brute force applied to the test pieces won't be wasted.
Report on that soon.
Then I can get on and sort the thing properly.
OK the results of the adhesives test -
I applied some force, pulling bending and twisting in various ways - first with my fingers, then grippign both sides with mole grips. I ended up doing as much as I could to break the joints.
- The JB Weld didn't last very long, cracked apart without too much trouble.
- The real weld stayed together with no problem, although it did allow a tiny amount of flexing. I could't break it.
- The Evo Stik Liquid Metal (?7 from B&Q, goes in a skeleton gun) I also could not break, I really tried! The steel is now distorted fromwhere it twsisted, but the joint stayed put. No flexing in the joint as far as I could tell.
I'm going to stick with welding - it's instant and the more I do, the more I feel more confident in it. But there may be places where the Evo stick stuff will be handy. Anyone want some free JB Weld?
Right next I did some more cleaning of the surface etc, to try and get a better idea of how much inner sill I'm going to have to replace.
This pic shows what I ended up with at the front end of the sill.
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i413.jpg
So now I'm gonna go and get pissed.
Arkwright
03-04-2006, 16:52
:woods:
Scary pictures, and as we don't have a "bury-head-in-sand" smiley we're all ignoring it and hoping our cars arn't the same...
Good luck,
Owen.
Huh well I thought this one was going to be fairly straightforward! :D Although in fact I think sorting it will be easier than it looks :pray:
Not expecting much progress over the next couple of weeks as I'm away next weekend and I'm banned from power tools (need to angle grind/flap disc off that surface rust) in the evenings as the garage is right underneath Junior's bedroom. May be able to do some prep on the other side.
David Sleith
04-04-2006, 12:07
Buy him a set of ear defenders
superchargedsam
04-04-2006, 12:56
get some white noise recorded and blast at him to cancel it out (well it works for NASA) !
Buy him a set of ear defenders
And teach him to use the grinder, gotta start 'em young...! lol
get some white noise recorded and blast at him to cancel it out (well it works for NASA) !
Reckon it'd work on the wife as well?
(I mean so she wouldn't hear the grinder either, not so I couldn't hear her ... but now that I come to think about it ... :whistle:)
And teach him to use the grinder, gotta start 'em young...! lol
He's doing OK with a hammer, next step MIG welding ;)
superchargedsam
04-04-2006, 16:21
LOL@John !
Done a bit of cleaning off of surface rust, doesn't look quite so scary :redface:, even if still not very nice (NB I highly recommend a rotary wire brush attachement on an angle grinder for this – although it’s a wee bit aggreesive if you’re not careful). Planning to link the bottom of the inner sill across to the floor bit as I won't be able to weld it onto the new outer sill as the original would have been done. I reckon it should be OK just to use 2 or 3 filler pieces about 50mm wide for this though.
Had a look at the other side, holding my breath – I had thought I was leavign th difficult side ‘till later, but it wasn’t nearly as bad :thumbsup:
Passenger side now:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i517.jpg
And underneath:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i519.jpg
Drivers side centre of sill area – around one of the screw holes for the side trim – inner sill looks fine here:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i520.jpg
At the front end, still needs surface rust removed. I might just leave that wee hole, might weld over it – pretty minor anyway:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i523.jpg
And this is my first MR2 – want to avoid this:
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i514.jpg
Interesting photos John. I hope my car doesn't look as bad when I get round to it. On the second photo down, did the flange running along the bottom of the sill originally follow the curve of the floor pan around into the wheel arch? Will you reinstate as per original? Ie what will you weld?
Cheers, Robert.
'Lo Rob.
Yes the flange followed the curve. The exposed curve of floor you can see is not that curve, however. Roughly in the middle of the pic in the top third you can see a thin flange bit sticking down - that is the remains of the other end of the flange, and it is only just curved away from the straight line. If I get time later I'll edit the pics to show this.
Will I reinstate the flange? No particular reason to, as I don't fancy jacking on there anyway, but the new sill cover has a flange on it. I'll have to see how it all goes together - will have to do the gap in the floor first - and then decide.
As to when - well I've got some exams/projects at the end of this month so I'd better focus on those for a bit >:(. But you never know.
I've actually done some welding!
Here's some pics. My first "real" welding ever. I'm actually embarrassed after seeing Owen's novice craftsmanship - still, it should serve the purpose, and with a little grinding down and burying under filler and paint, no-one will be the wiser :)
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i708.jpg
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i707.jpg
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i709.jpg
http://twobrutal.co.uk/galleryimages/i705.jpg
The last one is where the aerial used to go. I'm going to fit a roof mounted aerial (someday - low priority for now).
Two or three more patches to do, then the arches as well which were previously messed up by someone I actually paid to do it. Then *all* I'll have to do is paint it ...
Marksman
21-06-2006, 17:28
Well done that man! All mine was easy stuff as a had good bits to line up to, you've taken a far harder task to have a 1st bash at, so hats off. :praise2:
Did you use any chemical treatment on those iner bits metal?
Cheers,
Owen.
Paul Woods
21-06-2006, 18:00
not bad snotting for a novice at all that,get the spots closer though or mr mot man wont be happy (unless its all getting fillered over!)....well done sir.
well done john, know exactly how you feel mate, keep on plugging away at her:mrgreen: . have you seen the replacement sills over on the mk1 club for sale section? anything relevant there..?
Cheers guys.
I painted the inner sills with smooth hammerite before covering them over. Also going to fill them with waxoyl.
I had planned to filler over it all and paint so it will be invisible (ish). However if it will be safer/better to join up the welds then I'll do that first.
Got ford escort sills rather than the clubones as they are cheaper. I've just cut off the bits I wanted rather than replace the whole sill. Still not sure if that was wise or not, however I'm halfway down this route now so I'll finish it this way.
yep just spot the welds in until its complete, then grind them back flush as you can without going too
thin and see what u have, might still need another spot or two.
what paint are you using over the welds john? i was recommended high zinc primer (weld thru spray).. i use this after grinding back, then my cosmetics go over that, i.e; fillers and primers etc. the bits non visible are first zinc primered then seam sealer over that, i too have gone for injecting wax through the body holes once the repair is done, hell.. i'll spray anything i can through them wretchid holes!
lodgeman
22-06-2006, 22:12
your beginning to sound like a real pro adam! lol lol :moon:
:hmm: .. must have been somebody else typing the message then :mrgreen: just your words al, nowt to do with me!
*disclaimer: al's wise words, sue him not me :-)
firstmk1
17-08-2006, 23:21
How do you go about refitting the side skirts when the new sills are in place?
Haven't updated this for a while! Making slow - not no, just slow - progress.
Shouldn't be too hard to refit the skirts, tho' I haven't got that far yet. I'd expect to tape the side skirt in place then mark where the screw holes are needed. Then either drill or punch the holes, then refit the side skirt with self tapping screws. Or maybe make the holes a little bigger and use the plastic pieces that pop into the holes, as originally used by Toyota.
The advantage or punching the holes rather than drilling are that there is a bigger contact surface for the screw, and the punching work-hardens the steel making it stronger around the screw as well.
Marksman
18-08-2006, 13:57
I highly recommend riv-nuts.
O.S.
superchargedsam
18-08-2006, 14:07
riv nuts are literally the nuts ! owen you got a riv nut gun then ?
Marksman
18-08-2006, 14:42
riv nuts are literally the nuts ! owen you got a riv nut gun then ?
Only a hand held one, and suposedly it's only good for aluminium rivnuts. Must say I like the idea of sleel ones better and steel ones with an icke tack of weld to stop them ever even thinking of spinning even more...
O.S.
A newbie here and grateful for this thread 'cos it's helped me to do my sills. To get the sideskirts on I sprayed the sills with grey primer so you could easily see pencil marks. Then bolted up the rear w/arch section and offered up the main section, marking through the holes.
I drilled a large hole and sunk in 6mm nuts, tacked into place. Run a tap through afterwards to clean any weld spatter and it's very solid. You won't need to do all the holes, just a few and you can use stainless bolts.
superchargedsam
22-10-2006, 14:16
yeah dont blame ya going for the stainless bolts in that area ! tend to crumble or nsap after time with normal crappy screws with lovely rounded heads to work with !
Glad this has helped someone 'cos mine still ain't finished!
John, clear your PM's....:thumbsup:
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